Judith Cone
Vice President, Emerging Strategies, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Dear Students,
Two factors have come together to inspire me to write this letter to you.
First, it has been my privilege to promote cross-campus entrepreneurship on
college and university campuses, and I have met some amazing young people with
great entrepreneurial ideas who want their lives to count for something
significant. I also have met many students who have no interest in
entrepreneurship because they have a negative perception of business. It is
mainly to them that I write this letter.
The second factor is that the world is hungry for what we often take for
granted. I have been invited to visit countries around the world to speak with
leaders on how to promote entrepreneurship as a way to create opportunity and
hope for their young people. These leaders clearly understand that entrepreneurs
create the net new jobs by bringing innovative products and services to
customers.
The most recent example is a meeting I attended, convened by Her Highness
Sheikka Mozad of Qatar, that focused on how to create economic opportunity for
young people in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Knowing that hopelessness
makes the world a more dangerous place, she has committed $100 million to
developing economic opportunity. I sat at a table with people from such
countries as Syria, Tunisia, and Morocco and heard their leaders make plans to
provide entrepreneurship education. A young Syrian entrepreneur who founded an
animation company talked about following his dreams and the thrill of being
economically independent through his own efforts. And, in Indonesia, I met a
young man who has a doughnut business and is bringing in more money than anyone
in his family has ever seen. The common thread in all of this is the belief that
entrepreneurship is a powerful avenue for prosperity for an individual, a
region, or a country.
I experience the hunger in the world for the privilege of creating jobs
through entrepreneurship, and then I return to the United States, where I see
something that troubles me.
Some students and professors reject business as a morally responsible way to
spend one's life. The issue I have is not that some people would rather work in
the public sector (government) or the social sector (nonprofit work), but that
they assign a higher moral calling to these two sectors than to the private
sector (business).
As a college student, you are attempting to gain the knowledge, skills,
networks, and inspiration to live a happy, productive, and meaningful life. I
like to think of each of you as one unit of creative potential. Looking at it
this way means that faculty members are more than dispensers of knowledge. They
are guides along your journey, teaching the subjects, passing along beliefs and
biases, hopefully inspiring you, and challenging you, to consider the types of
people you will become.
Some professors attempt to influence you toward those biases. Some think
dismissively of business, for instance, as if society would be better off
without it, or they assign pernicious motivations to those who lead businesses.
Throughout history, social experiments to this end have failed. Every day, these
professors use and benefit from the products and services of business: Google,
bookstores, clothing, transportation, and the local coffee shop. They fail to
differentiate between business leaders and dismiss the whole sector as greedy,
uncaring, and destructive. Yet, even with much evidence of greed and wrongdoing
in the public and social sectors, that same categorical condemnation is not
present.
In fact, you can make a vital contribution in any of the three sectors,
because all three are needed for a society to function well. (If just one sector
is weak or absent, the result is usually a failed state. Think of the former
communist states that tried doing away with private business, or the chaotic
warlord states without effective government.)
More to the point, in each sector there are models of virtue and there are
scoundrels. Goodness has nothing to do with the sector. Where goodness lies is
in the heart of the individual, and the choices that matter are the moral
choices made in conducting the work.
Consider the following examples. Mother Teresa became a symbol of charity to
millions around the world, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She offered
great comfort and help to those in need, starting in the slums of Calcutta, and
then expanded to other countries. If we asked the question, "Where does goodness
lie?" it was in the heart of Mother Teresa, whose work falls within the social
sector in a religious order. Yet, one can conversely cite examples of abuse in
the church or of greedy evangelists taking money from the poor.
Have you heard of Julius Walls, Jr.? Mr. Walls is CEO of Greyston Bakery, a
$6.5 million for-profit enterprise in Yonkers, New York. Greyston bakes gourmet
pastries for the New York City market and supplies brownie bits and other baked
items for Ben & Jerry's ice cream worldwide. Greyston delivers high-quality
goods while maintaining its policy of hiring and promoting the very people who
have the hardest time finding good work. Nearly the whole workforce, including
supervisors, consists of men and women who once were either in prison, addicted
to drugs, on public assistance, or homeless. Some even go on to start their own
businesses with help from Greyston, which also has a foundation for community
development in Yonkers. The goodness here lies in Mr. Walls and in his
colleagues. They work in the private sector.
On the other hand, there is the Enron Corporation, named by
Fortune magazine for six consecutive years as "America's Most
Innovative Company," and at the height of its glory employed around 22,000
people claiming revenues at the triple billion dollar level. It now stands as a
leading example of corporate corruption. Those who orchestrated the fraud once
were masters of the universe who not only broke the law, but destroyed many
lives in the process. Where does goodness lie? Not in the hearts of the Enron
employees who knowingly led this private sector deceit.
Likewise, there have been many news stories about horrendous wrongdoings in
the social and public sectors. Nonprofits of all kinds have been found to be
neglecting or defrauding the people they were meant to serve. This headline in
the San Francisco Chronicle on May 13, 2007, demonstrates this
point: "The Teachers Who Cheat: Some help students during standards test—or fix
answers later—and California's safeguards may leave more breaches unreported."
There have been similar stories around the country. The St. Petersburg
Times wrote: "A former United Way executive pleaded guilty Thursday to
stealing nearly $1.9 million to buy expensive show horses in what is believed to
be the biggest embezzlement case in the agency's history." Sadly, it is all too
easy to cite examples of corruption in the public sector as well, such as the
recent Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. All three sectors are equally open to
corruption or virtue.
For every example of misconduct, one can counter with many more stories of
courage and sacrifice, of moral people living out their lives in the private,
public, and social sectors. These few brief stories illustrate the error in
condemning a segment of society rather than the individuals acting within that
segment. It illustrates the faulty thinking that accompanies raising one sector
over others as somehow morally elevated.
Ewing Kauffman, our founder, understood that it was erroneous to think of
social good as distinct from the contribution of business. He was not thinking
in terms of social responsibility of the corporation but of the actual purpose
of business. He believed that the purpose is to bring society a product or
service, and that an individual running a business ought to treat employees with
respect, pay them fairly, engage in responsible business practices, and give to
the community. He thought that creating jobs was his greatest social
contribution—even greater than the
$2.5 billion foundation bearing his name. He said that if a person has a good
job, and is invested in by the corporation, then that person's family rarely
will need social services. That family will pay taxes, send their children to
college, and be engaged citizens. Goodness was in the heart of Ewing Kauffman, a
businessman.
Morality, ethics, and the ability to make the world a better place are not
the domain of any one sector. It is individuals, and how they conduct themselves
in the world, that matter. As you complete your college work, I hope you will
take at least one course in entrepreneurship to learn how to translate your
creative ideas into enterprises that create value for society. I hope you
remember the many young people around the world who seek the opportunities
afforded by entrepreneurship. And, I hope your story is told one day as an
example of how you placed opportunity and choice in the hands of others. I hope
people know through your actions that you used your unit of potential for
good—whether in the private, public, or social sector.
With Sincerest Best Wishes,
Judith Cone